127 



Zbe Mil^ Canarv?. 



(Serinus Caiiaria). 



By W. Geo. Cresweix, M.D., F.Z.S. 



{Contimied from page loo). 



'^ •r/ j ¥ ' VERY striking confirmation of these early 

 JhI writers having been correct — as indeed one 

 l«JU would expect them to be, seeing that most of 

 them were so much nearer the spot both as to 

 time and place than we are — is to be found in our own 

 everyday experiences. In these modern times every- 

 one, whether his biological knowledge is little or much, 

 is familiar with the expression " reversion to ancestral 

 type." And we see a concrete instance of this rever- 

 sion every time we breed a variegated canary in our 

 cages, and on most occasions when we breed a mule. 

 This obedience to those natural laws which have been 

 revealed to us by science, constitutes indeed the great 

 stumbling block against which our fanciers of the 

 "Green Canary" have had so persistently to kick 

 their toes. Although with infinite patience they have 

 so far conquered the natural characteristics obtaining 

 in the species as to have succeeded to a great extent in 

 perpetuating by strenuous selection from accidental 

 sports that peculiar structure of the feather barbs, 

 which in combination with the greyish-brown and 

 yellow pigments gives the ocular appearance of green, 

 they nevertheless constantly complain of the prevail- 

 ing tendency to appear of what they regard as the 

 objectionable brown tint. A careful study of the 

 coloration of Canary hybrids (even apart from those 

 derived from the Goldfinch or Linnet) betrays the 

 same thing. Only when the other parent is decidedly 

 green, e.g. a Siskin, do we find anything like that colour 

 in the offspring. Some years ago I was successful in 

 breeding several young birds between a Serin Finch 

 (^Serinus serbnis) and a Canary. Although the former 

 bird shows a little green about the wing coverts, the 



